Seymour Ambulance revamps

SEYMOUR  The Seymour Ambulance board of trustees late Tuesday developed a temporary arrangement for the leadership of the organization.

Elizabeth Benton

Published 12:00 am, Wednesday, February 2, 2005

The trustees had planned to appoint a new executive director, but had a change of heart in discussions Tuesday night. The arrangement will be in effect for the next 60 days. The decision was made following the resignation this week of interim Executive Director Joe Marcucio.

Trustee Tom Schutte said the three trustees will handle the associations finances, while three frontline officers will handle day-to-day operations.

The two other trustees are Jesse Rallis and Doug Zaniewski. The officers are 3rd Lt. Joe Pagano, 2nd Lt. Michael Karkowski and 1st Lt. Tom Davis.

Schutte said he hopes the new leadership will herald new trust and openness in the organization.

"Were trying to get away from the old Frank Marcucio style," he said, referring to the former full-time executive director who resigned two weeks ago.

"It is a completely open organization, and things are really up to the membership," Schutte said.

The trustees and the officers will lead the organization, pending a report from the towns EMS Study Committee, which met for the first time last week.

The committee plans to meet semiweekly for the next month to unravel the organizations financial chaos, which came to light last month when state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal released a preliminary report detailing tens of thousands of dollars of misspent or misappropriated money.

Blumenthals report claims the service racked up more than $47,000 in questionable charges between 1997 and 2003, including for travel, an expense at a local adults-only boutique and a dating service. Members of the EMS Study Committee have also compiled a report that says several grants awarded to the corps were not used for their intended purposes.

EMS Study Committee Chairman John Conroy and Vice Chairman Frank Loda said this week that the volunteer ambulance group is deeper in debt than previously thought, as unpaid bills to various vendors continue to mount.

Conroy and Loda spent Saturday at EMS headquarters, hoping to gain further insight into the groups financial woes.

"Based on our financial review so far, (the outstanding debt) is $173,617," Conroy said. The amount is what Seymour Ambulance owes in various vendor bills.

Dominic Thomas, attorney for the association, said he and the board of trustees are wading through years of financial records.

"Were trying to develop an appropriate picture of the financial situation, but there are a lot of gaps in the records," he said.

The association has also announced plans to create a new executive assistant position, reporting directly to the board of trustees. Schutte and Thomas said the association has not had time to carve out specific roles for a new executive director and executive assistant, but they anticipated a change in the associations bylaws in the near future.

A committee is expected to be appointed soon to look into the associations bylaws, Thomas said.